slack-docs

name	slack-docs
description	Use when answering a conceptual or how-to question about Slack platform features, or when asked to look up, fetch, or summarize a docs.slack.dev page, including a pasted docs.slack.dev link. Covers finding and reading official Slack docs as clean markdown.
argument-hint	[topic or docs.slack.dev URL]

Slack Platform Documentation

Help the developer find the right page on the official Slack documentation site (https://docs.slack.dev) and read it as clean markdown, so answers come from the live docs rather than memory. The site exposes three machine-readable surfaces an agent can use directly, with no authentication and no Slack workspace:

• A search API method: GET https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=<q>&category=<c> returns ranked page hits as JSON. Scope every search with a category (guides, reference, a specific SDK, etc.); an uncategorized search skews heavily toward SDK pages.
• Per-page markdown: every page is available at its URL + .md (e.g. /quickstart.md).
• Index files: /llms.txt (a curated overview) and /llms-sitemap.md (a list of every markdown page).

If $0 is provided, it is either a docs.slack.dev URL (jump to the Fast Path) or a topic to search (start at Step 1). For a broad "how do I build X on Slack?" question rather than one specific page, read https://docs.slack.dev/llms.txt first; it is a curated, LLM-oriented overview of the platform and the recommended build path.

Critical rules:

• The docs are the source of truth. Do not answer a factual question about the Slack platform from memory; discover the page, fetch it, then answer from what it says.
• Prefer the .md version of any page over the HTML version. It is cleaner for reading and quoting.
• Every fetched markdown page begins with a Source: <url> line. Keep that URL so you can cite the page back to the developer.

DO NOT rules:

• DO NOT invent documentation URLs. Get them from the search API, the sitemap, or a link the developer gave you then verify by fetching.
• DO NOT paraphrase a page you have not actually fetched. If a fetch fails, say so rather than filling the gap from memory.
• DO NOT assume every URL has a .md version. If a fetch returns an error, fall back to the search API or the sitemap (Step 1) rather than guessing another URL.

---

Fast Path (the developer already has a URL)

If the developer pasted a https://docs.slack.dev/... link, skip discovery and go straight to Step 2 to fetch and read it.

---

Step 1: Discover the Page (search)

Use the docs search API to find candidate pages. WebFetch this URL, with the query URL-encoded and a category to scope the results:

https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=<url-encoded query>&category=<category>&limit=5

Always start with a category. An uncategorized search is dominated by SDK reference pages (a query like socket mode or oauth can return a top 10 that is entirely Bolt/Node pages), which buries the conceptual and reference content most questions are actually about. Pick the starting category from the developer's intent:

• guides — the default for "how do I…", "what is…", and conceptual platform questions (Events API, OAuth, Socket Mode, manifests, modals, App Home). Start here when in doubt.
• reference — for a specific method, event, scope, object, or Block Kit element, especially an exact name like chat.postMessage.
• A tool/SDK category (python, javascript, java, slack_cli, slack_github_action, deno_slack_sdk) — only once you know the developer's tool. See Step 3.

So socket mode as a concept → https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=socket%20mode&category=guides&limit=5.

The response is JSON:

{
  "total_results": 12,
  "results": [
    { "url": "/apis/events-api/using-socket-mode", "title": "Using Socket Mode" }
  ],
  "limit": 5
}

Scan results for the best title/url match, then read it in Step 2. A query is required; calling the endpoint with no query returns a 400 with an error field.

Full set of categories:

Category	Scopes results to
guides	Conceptual and how-to guides
reference	API reference: methods, events, scopes, objects, Block Kit
changelog	Changelog and release notes
python	Python tools (Bolt for Python, Python Slack SDK)
javascript	JavaScript tools (Bolt for JS, Node Slack SDK)
java	Java tools (Bolt for Java, Java Slack SDK)
slack_cli	Slack CLI docs
slack_github_action	Slack Send GitHub Action docs
deno_slack_sdk	Deno Slack SDK docs

If a categorized search returns no good hit, widen it: try the other likely category (guides ⇄ reference), then drop category entirely as a last resort. An unrecognized value returns a 400 with an error field listing the valid categories, so re-run with one of those or with no category.

Fallbacks when search does not surface a good hit, or returns a 500/temporary error (the endpoint is rate-limited and cached ~5 minutes):

• WebFetch https://docs.slack.dev/llms-sitemap.md, a flat list of every documentation page's .md URL, and scan it for the relevant path.
• For API reference lookups, the enriched index pages are often faster: https://docs.slack.dev/reference/methods.md, .../events.md, .../scopes.md, .../objects.md, and .../block-kit.md each list every item with a one-line description and a .md link.
• If the developer has the Slack CLI, slack docs search "<query>" does the same discovery from the terminal (see the slack:slack-cli skill).

---

Step 2: Read the Page (fetch markdown)

Given a page reference (a url from Step 1, or a link the developer pasted), read its markdown:

1. Normalize the reference to its .md URL:
   • A site-relative path from Step 1 (e.g. /apis/events-api/using-socket-mode): prepend https://docs.slack.dev.
   • A full URL the developer pasted: drop any #anchor first.
   • Append .md, e.g. …/using-socket-mode → https://docs.slack.dev/apis/events-api/using-socket-mode.md. The server lowercases .md requests, so casing does not matter: chat.postMessage.md and chat.postmessage.md both resolve.
2. WebFetch it. The page opens with Source: <original-url>; the rest is the page body in markdown.
3. Answer the developer from the fetched content, and cite the Source URL.

If a page is long and the developer asked something narrow, fetch it and quote only the relevant section rather than dumping the whole page.

---

Step 3: Tool and SDK Documentation

Implementation details differ significantly between the official tools, so establish which one the developer is using first, then scope your reading to that tool's doc subtree. Each lives under https://docs.slack.dev/tools/<name> and its pages are fetchable as .md like any other (e.g. https://docs.slack.dev/tools/bolt-js/concepts.md). If the developer has not said, ask before assuming.

Tool	Docs path	Search category	Use when the developer…
Slack CLI	/tools/slack-cli	slack_cli	scaffolds, runs, or manages an app from the terminal; mentions slack commands or app manifests
Bolt for JavaScript	/tools/bolt-js	javascript	builds an app in Node/TypeScript with the Bolt framework
Bolt for Python	/tools/bolt-python	python	builds an app in Python with the Bolt framework
Bolt for Java	/tools/java-slack-sdk	java	builds an app in Java with Bolt (Bolt for Java lives in the Java SDK docs)
Node Slack SDK	/tools/node-slack-sdk	javascript	wants lower-level Node clients (@slack/web-api, @slack/socket-mode) without the full Bolt framework
Python Slack SDK	/tools/python-slack-sdk	python	wants the lower-level Python client without Bolt
Java Slack SDK	/tools/java-slack-sdk	java	wants Java clients, or is using Bolt for Java
Slack Send GitHub Action	/tools/slack-github-action	slack_github_action	sends data to Slack from a GitHub Actions workflow

Once you know the tool, narrow discovery with the matching category from Step 1, e.g. …?query=middleware&category=javascript. Note the languages group: both Bolt for JavaScript and the Node Slack SDK fall under javascript (likewise python and java each cover their Bolt framework plus lower-level SDK), so the category scopes to the language family, not a single subtree.

Bolt is the framework built upon the matching language SDK. When unsure which subtree a topic lives in, fall back to the search API (Step 1) as it indexes all of these.